Safety and health of workers: protection against risk from explosive atmospheres
1995/0235(COD)
In adopting the report by Mr Graham MATHER (PPE, UK), the European Parliament approved the
proposal for a directive with the following amendments:
- Parliament urged that the directive should be applied in a flexible way and thus proposed that it
should follow certain principles for the prevention and reduction of effects of an explosion rather
than preventing the formation of explosive atmospheres; it stressed that the requisite protection for
workers can be provided only by taking measures to respect these principles;
- on supervision, Parliament urged that it should be ensured by use of instruments and modern
technical means as well as by education and training in working environments where explosive
atmospheres may arise; where workers from several undertakings are present at the same workplace
each employer shall ensure appropriate supervision of its workers or may designate one of the
employers as overall supervisor;
- on protection documents, Parliament asked that employer should draw up and keep up to date a
health and safety plan, which may be a set of documents satisfying the pertinent requirements of
Directive 89/391/EEC;
- requirements for modifications to hardware or equipment already used before entry into force of
the directive must be applied on a similar timescale to Directive 94/98/EEC, which does not come
into force before 2003.
- the Member States must take measures to inform undertakings likely to be affected by the directive,
particularly SMEs, of the provisions of the directive, particularly by ensuring a wide distribution of
the vade-mecum setting out guidelines for some possible ways of complying with minimum
requirements of the directive;
- the periods for implementing the directive are extended (24 months after adoption of the directive
instead of 31 December 1997);
- finally, in Annex I (Zones), Parliament stresses that each zone or place where there is an explosive
atmosphere should be assessed in accordance with normal operation.
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